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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28194252">When the Great Lights Go Out</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning'>daphnerunning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Intercrural Sex, M/M, Not entirely sane but entirely consensual, Post-Darkening, Sibling Incest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:35:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28194252</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps it was the madness of living in a world of darkness. Only the stars lit the sky, and their light could not shine through the tent, as Telperion’s would have. </p><p>If the light could not find them, maybe there was no need to hide what they had always been, and what they had always hidden from each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maedhros | Maitimo/Maglor | Makalaurë</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>When the Great Lights Go Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/gifts">AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Azh.</p><p>I mean, for an anon request on tumblr.</p><p>Very anon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Middle-Earth caused madness. In later days, it would be well-known. Maitimo felt it in his <em>fëa</em>, long before he was hauled underground.</p><p class="p1">At first, he thought it was the light.</p><p class="p1">The light had gone out of the world, leaving them under the stars. At first, Maitimo cried out with the rest of his brethren, feeling lost and alone.</p><p class="p1">It wasn’t the crossing that changed everything, unless maybe, it was. Maybe it was earlier in Alqualondë, when what should have been unthinkable was made unavoidable by his father’s voice in his ear. Perhaps it was just the darkness, and the fact that for once, he did not feel that everyone was looking at him, seeing him as he was not and could never truly be.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps he could simply be himself, instead of who he ought.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps that was why the sword felt so right in his hand. He had practiced and trained with one before--a skill of little use in the Time Before, but at least one that his father had prized--and now, it felt right in his hand. He felt himself a terror, drunk with the power of it for those few brief chaotic moments at Alqualondë, and it was easier to think of himself as finally doing what he was suited for than as the things his brother was singing about, draped over the side of the boats.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps it was losing Pityo.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps it was the ash of his father’s body, coming unmoored in his hand, laying leaden on him like motes of his destiny, clinging to his skin. Would it not be disrespectful to wipe his hand on his breeches, or a cloth? The madness bubbled inside him, almost a laugh.</p><p class="p1">Whatever the cause, Maedhros felt himself wild. As if they had always been stifled, back in Aman, and he had never grabbed those few things he’d ever prized, afraid of what his father or the Valar or the stars themselves would think.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>What matter the Valar and father now? What matter the stars?</em>
</p><p class="p1">And Findekáno--</p><p class="p1">He would not think about Findekáno.</p><p class="p1">There was someone in his tent.</p><p class="p1">Maitimo pulled off the crown, heavy on his head but light in his hand, and set it on the stand next to his bedroll. Some king he was. A king in a tent, an exile vagabond with a circlet. Fine. Let him be what had never been. His father had been unlike any to come before; perhaps he would be unlike even his father, and not rue what was lost in the inheritance.</p><p class="p1">“Russandol,” he heard, as soon as the crown was off his head. Makalaurë often waited to speak until he was wearing it no longer.</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë looked at him, and Maitimo stared at him, almost uncomprehending. “What?” he asked, and felt the tension of the day vibrate in him like a plucked harp string.</p><p class="p1">“Don’t go.”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo could have laughed. He didn’t. “You didn’t speak up in the council meeting. Why wait?”</p><p class="p1">“Because it’s the right thing for you to go.”</p><p class="p1">“But?”</p><p class="p1">“But I don’t want you to.”</p><p class="p1">“Káno--“</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë’s hand shot out, grabbing his wrist. “Are we not allowed to speak of love any longer?” he demanded, his lyrical voice suddenly raw. “Did we leave all fellowship on the other side of the sea?”</p><p class="p1">“I go for <em>us</em>,” Maitimo replied, his voice hard. He didn’t pull away. It was the only time someone had touched him since--</p><p class="p1">He would not think about Findekáno.</p><p class="p1">“No,” Makalaurë’s fingers dug into his wrist. “You go for <em>him</em>. For Atar.”</p><p class="p1">“And should I not?”</p><p class="p1">“He won’t be there to protect you!”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo laughed, and heard the strange fire in it. “I’m not the one that needs protecting, Káno,” he said, and then he was moving in ways even he didn’t understand, gripping his brother by the chin, forcing his face up. “Don’t you feel it? How new everything is? We might be <em>anything</em> here.”</p><p class="p1">Because they could not be what they were.</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë’s eyes were wide, challenging, and he yanked at Maitimo’s tunic. “Or you might be killed like him, and be nothing at all.”</p><p class="p1">“If I don’t go,” Maitimo said, and swallowed, “then we may as well be nothing at all.”</p><p class="p1">The Void waited for them, even now. It yawned below them, as if they stood on a precipice, and one wrong step would pull them down. The precipice was crumbling behind, and the only way out was forward, towards the jewels, towards the last concrete thing that gave them purpose. He would chase them, as his father had chased them, and perhaps then he would find his footing at last, and discover who he was meant to be, in this new world where he could be anything.</p><p class="p1">Something yanked at him. It was Makalaurë, grabbing his tunic, yanking his head down. “And if I say you are enough, and you have always been?” his brother hissed. “If I say, do not leave me to bear this burden, just because you cannot bear to stand still with your thoughts?”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo grabbed Makalaurë’s wrists, his eyes blazing. “What would you have me do? Languish? Wait for the Valar to retract our Doom? Build new ships, and sail back to the Helcaraxë, and beg on our knees for forgiveness? It will not come! No one we left behind--“</p><p class="p1">He broke off. He would not think of--</p><p class="p1">He could <em>not</em>.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps it was the madness of living in a world of darkness. Only the stars lit the sky, and their light could not shine through the tent, as Telperion’s would have.</p><p class="p1">If the light could not find them, maybe there was no need to hide what they had always been, and what they had always hidden from each other.</p><p class="p1">“You should have spoken against him with me,” he said, and heard his own voice turn harsh. His hands were still around Makalaurë’s, biting deeply enough to leave bruises. “If we had both stood against him, we might have gone back after all. The others would have followed.”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë stared up at him, unafraid, with something darkly eager in his eyes. “I did not.”</p><p class="p1">“You did not.”</p><p class="p1">“What, then?” Makalaurë shifted, changing his stance, the warmth of him startling in the cool air of the Ered Wethrin. “What will you do about it?”</p><p class="p1">Sense died in Maitimo, and he looked down, uncomprehending.</p><p class="p1">“I took him from you,” Makalaurë insisted, and yanked at his tunic again, the way he would twitch the chain on the nose of a recalcitrant stallion who was refusing to take a step. “If you would leave to punish me, I will <em>stop</em> you, if I can. Surely, there’s some other way, you <em>must</em> have another way to hurt me besides leaving--“</p><p class="p1">Maybe it was the madness, all that was left over after the Light left them.</p><p class="p1">Maitimo could not hear his own thoughts, could not hear one more word, and moved, yanking Makalaurë close by his wrists and finding it easy, as if his brother <em>wanted</em> to be pulled into whatever terrifying maelstrom raged within him. He could not hear one more word, had nothing to say to ease his brother’s worries, nothing but strange new deeds that would have been unthinkable, back when the Trees were flowering.</p><p class="p1">He could not truly call it a kiss. A kiss was something he’d never stolen before, only been sweetly given, when such gifts were abundant and easily obtained. They had come with laughter and teasing secrets, tasting of sweet ripe fruits and soft words, of a summer day’s heat and furtive promises of the future.</p><p class="p1">This was not that.</p><p class="p1">This was no sweet promise, but a hungry, eager thing. This was no teasing brush of lips, but a ferocious meeting of tongues and teeth. Odder still, this was no whispered secret--as if a father’s disapproval could weigh against what they faced now. They laid each other bare, and knew what it was they saw.</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë was tearing at him, or maybe his clothing. He was fierce as any of the Sons of Fëanor in his urgency, lean and dangerous, and totally unafraid. Maitimo met him, snarl for snarl, movement for movement, until they fell in a tangle of limbs against the bedroll.</p><p class="p1">Kissing Findekáno had made Maitimo’s heart flutter and ache.</p><p class="p1">Tasting Makalaurë’s lips made him hard.</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë’s hands were fearless, shoving up his tunic, cupping him through his breeches. That startling intimacy made Maitimo suck in a breath, his heart pounding in the darkness. “Káno,” he breathed and canted his hips forward, rubbing against that firm, warm hand.</p><p class="p1">“You can have what you want,” Makalaurë whispered, and finally managed to free him from his tunic, running his hands up and down Maitimo’s chest and torso, down to pluck at the ties of his breeches. “You can--you can take what you want, Russandol.”</p><p class="p1">Not even the stars could see them.</p><p class="p1">No lights shone when he bared his brother’s body, and kissed bruises into his neck, making him arch and writhe.</p><p class="p1">A king in a tent, an exile vagabond without his circlet. Maybe he was just Maitimo, all the parts of himself he’d never admitted were <em>him</em>.</p><p class="p1">Maybe Makalaurë had always seen it.</p><p class="p1">“You want to,” Makalaurë was breathing, and grabbed his hand, pulling it down, and for the first time, he felt someone else’s cock against his hand. He sucked in a breath, his fingers curling as he learned the shape of it, rubbing his thumb slowly over the head, feeling liquid beading there.</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë grabbed his face, wrenching it up. “I don’t mind,” he whispered, and Maitimo wasn’t sure what he meant. Didn’t mind, that Maitimo had always sort of wanted to fill his hands with someone’s cock? Didn’t mind, that his older brother was pawing at him like some kind of animal? Didn’t mind, that he was king, and he was fool, and he had left all of his sense of reason and propriety back on the ships that had burned?</p><p class="p1">Maitimo let out a growl, and pinned his brother’s wrists above his head, stripping him with little care for the cloth, hearing him gasp and groan with every rasp of Maitimo’s fingers over bare skin. “You want to atone?” he demanded, and ground himself down, bare flesh against bare flesh, making Makalaurë writhe at the sudden contact, as Maitimo’s cock dragged over his own. “You want to give yourself to me, like this? Instead of standing at my side when I <em>needed</em> your voice?”</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” Makalaurë said, unrepentant and challenging, arching up against him with sinuous grace.</p><p class="p1">Findekáno had been graceful like that.</p><p class="p1">Maitimo’s next kiss was harder, biting, and he heard Makalaurë yelp. “Stop it,” Maitimo said, more harshly than he’d intended. “You want me to be the villain, and you my helpless prize? You want to drive me to madness?”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë’s lips were red and bruised, his eyes hazy. “Have I anything else to offer?” he asked, but there was more of fire than of desolation in the words, and he was no defenseless victim.</p><p class="p1">Maitimo had seen enough of victims.</p><p class="p1">He let out a harsh, bitter sound, and let go of Makalaurë’s wrists. “You can be accomplice in this,” he spat, “or you can leave. I won’t have you think yourself above whatever desires you’re rousing in me.”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë bared his teeth, and surged up at him. Maitimo was tall and strong, but Makalaurë was a warrior too, and knocked him onto his back. “Careful, brother,” he hissed, and even such harsh words were a silken, lyrical thing in his magnificent voice. “If you let me take all I desire, there will be little of atonement for me. Unless...”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo’s hand thrust down between them, gripping Makalaurë’s cock, making him curse and squirm. “Unless?”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë stared down at him, and his eyes blazed almost gold. “Unless you <em>aren’t</em> pretending I’m someone else.”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo would have struck him then, but Makalaurë was quicker, his own hand arcing down to grip him by the balls, making him clench his teeth. His gaze was a dare, from this close, and none of it made Maitimo any less hard.</p><p class="p1">“Don’t be stupid, Káno,” he finally managed, and started to stroke, no longer pretending he’d ever had a wet dream that didn’t involve someone else’s cock. “You aren’t that good an actor.”</p><p class="p1">“Should I braid my hair?” Makalaurë’s voice faltered, his limbs trembling, and he let go, running his hands back over Maitimo’s chest, rubbing at his nipples in an oddly intimate way that made Maitimo’s cock drip clear fluid. “Should I fetch--nnh, <em>Russo</em>--my harp?”</p><p class="p1">Maitimo rolled them again, knocking Makalaurë flat, kicking his legs apart. Makalaurë did not resist, but arched under him, hungry and breathless and iron-hard in his hand. “Don’t bother,” he breathed, and kissed his brother, tasting blood, pumping his cock as he ground against the inside of one pale thigh. “You could never be him.”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë’s eyes flared with hurt and rage, and Maitimo took that, too, kissed it off of his mouth in shuddering licks and bites. Then with a quick snap of his hands, he flipped his brother over into a tangle of tense limbs, yanking him up onto all fours. “I’m riding out in the morning,” he panted, and rutted forward, his cock sliding between Makalaurë’s thighs as he pushed them together. It wasn’t slick enough, the friction intense as their skin dragged together, but it was good for all of that, tight and warm in the darkness, where they could be anything and chose to be like this.</p><p class="p1">“No!”</p><p class="p1">Makalaurë reached back, grabbing at his hair, turning to try and take him in another kiss, desperately searching, seeking something Maitimo didn’t understand. “Don’t--<em>leave</em> me--“</p><p class="p1">Maitimo nipped at his ear, making Makalaurë writhe beneath him, and wrapped his hand around, palming his brother’s cock as if he’d done it a thousand times instead of just once, probably just once ever. “I will come back,” he promised, and rocked forward, hard and eager, feeling Makalaurë’s thighs grow slick with the fluid his cock was dripping, even as his thumb circled and teased the head of Makalaurë’s cock.</p><p class="p1">“And--if--you don’t?”</p><p class="p1">It was battle, after all. It would be battle in the morning, and it was battle now, straining and struggling against Makalaurë’s tense form, taking and giving, secrets shared in the darkness neither of them could escape.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>And would we? If we could? </em>
</p><p class="p1">Maitimo was different when the great lights had gone out. Before, he would never have coaxed his brother to spend in his hand, and brought those fingers to his mouth after, unashamed to taste as he wanted, hearing Makalaurë gasp in startled completion beneath him. Before, he would never have gripped Makalaurë’s hips, yanking him back as he thrust forward between now-slippery thighs, each motion something rough, needy, desperate, until he found his own release, making both of them a mess.</p><p class="p1">The great lights going out did not mean everything was hidden.</p><p class="p1">Some things, perversely, were only revealed after the candles were snuffed.</p><p class="p1">Maitimo let Makalaurë cling to him, pressing kisses to his neck and his chin, and tasted tears on his lips. “And if you don’t come back?” he heard, a broken whisper in the darkness.</p><p class="p1">Findekáno had not been afraid Maitimo would not come back. Maitimo had seen him from the deck of the ship, when all other faces had been grave, and Findekáno had smiled, trusting him.</p><p class="p1">He did not want to be trusted like that again.</p><p class="p1">He fisted a hand in Makalaurë’s hair, and held him close with all the strength of his arms, and did not answer.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28197669">sweet nothings are screamed not spoken</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster">AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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